Apple Studio Display connector ports

[Warrior_Rocker] pulled off his own Apple Studio Display hack by removing the cable and adding ports. As we saw in Wednesday’s post, these displays use a cable with a proprietary connector that combines DVI, USB and Power. Instead of altering the cable, [Warrior_Rocker] removed it completely. By wiring up a standard barrel jack for power, a USB type-B socket, and a DVI port, he can now use standard video, power, and USB cables to connect to the monitor.

This project was actually submitted to us on May 25th and we missed it. It’s sad that sometimes tips fall through the cracks, and we’re sorry that we missed this particularly well-executed hack. [Warrior_Rocker] wrote in asking why his project didn’t qualify after seeing the similar post on Wednesday. So please don’t take it personally if your project doesn’t get posted. If you think it fits right in here at Hackaday and haven’t heard anything after two weeks or so, consider sending to us again.

Hurray, I have the same in my basement for the bench, but it use a PC to drive its hacked-in DVI connector. Works great, and it’s a very nice looking monitor. I am lacking a 24 volt supply with enough oomph, so I ended up using 12v from the PC molex and an external 12v brick together. It’s, uh temporary. :)

Cheers to people to still see value in perfectly good things and make use of them.

@ Me, or it shows that open isn’t always the best. The entire point of the ADC connection is that it allows one cable to carry power, video, and usb. Next you will say that the ipod cable is crap, even though it carries power, data, audio, video, remote control all in one, instead of having separate ports for each one, requiring your openness to use 5 different cables or more at the same time.

If Apple was really gunho about proprietary connections, they would have used completely proprietary standards, instead of just a custom cable.

I agree whit mt2k, its just some lame way of making money. I think every one should go universal and we (the consumers) should stop buying stuff from company’s that only use costume cables/software which wont or hardley work whit other devices (fore example APPLE).

@cde: Who are you kidding? What functionality does it add? None,it adds ascetics, which is the opposite of function. If they wanted to reduce cable snare, all they had to do was fuse the wires of the connectors we see here, like every kvm kit on the planet. Instead, because apple certainly release any specs, you are reduced to humbly connecting it to whatever equipment Apple says you can.

nice hack.. its such a PITB having permanent cables, or even cables that are manufacterer specific – if only all apple products used standard cables – it’d make trying to find the right cable in a box full of 100 a whole lot easier!